Dying Moon
by Gaili Beron
Summary: Luna is scarred after she sees the fall of the Order and the death of her best friends at the hands of Voldemort. When she herself becomes at the mercy of Death Eaters, she gains the companionship of an old character; one that'll destroy or bring peace.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. All rights are reserved for J.K Rowling. I'm not making any sort of money off of this, just for entertainment.**

_The Angel of Death has hovered over the Wizarding World for over a year now. So many friends and family members have died in such a short time. The Order of the Phoenix members are the most sought after of the Death Eaters now, and I'm the youngest member now, even younger than our Ginny, who is out now, fighting Death-Eaters-_

A white feminine hand closed itself around Luna's pen. Luna paused, removing her head from the crook of her neck, looking at Fleur who was sitting across from her at the table. Fleur nodded over to the doorway from the kitchen silently. Luna sat up, silently jumping in her seat when Professor McGonagall strode into the kitchen.

The professor stood there, her simple tartan robes stained, and a ragged scroll of paper clutched tightly in her hands. "Molly? Macmillan came with the death toll."

Molly bustled out of the kitchen, wiping her apron on her dress. She cleared her throat, trying to keep it clear of all emotions. "Read it before my heart breaks again."

McGonagall unraveled the paper and quickly scanned the paper for Order members and loved ones. Her face turned white and crumpled. "Um, let's see. Megan Jones, Hestia Jones…" McGonagall paused, seeming to ready herself for what was coming, "Arthur, Bill and Ginvera Weasley."

's and Fleur's face became the color of parchment.

"My Bill? My Bill waz found among thee dead?" Fleur's hands instinctively when to the four-month-old baby within her womb. "No, _non_! No, no, no! I zwill no believe it! My Bill ez not dead, he is not! He'z too strong!" Fleur was on her feet now, her blonde hair seemed to stand up on end, her eyes wide and unseeing. Luna thought she looked like the demonic side of a Veela.

Mrs. Weasley clinched her teeth, holding in the tears gathering. "I have lost nearly all of my family and I refuse to stay here acting like a damsel in distress. The next attack-" she pulled her finger along her neck, "and there shall be more dead Death Eaters than anyone can count." Molly's eyes lowered, "If I die, then I shall be around people I love, not in this living hell. I can't cry any more. I've lost nearly all my children and now my husband is at peace with them." Molly, her stiff speech finished, marched back into the kitchen to resume her chores.

McGonagall looked painfully at Luna as a sobbing Fleur and angered left the dining room.

"Is my father on the paper?" Luna murmured curiously, retrieving her pen and turning to her writing.

"No…I think I'm going to my chambers. If anyone needs me, I'll be napping."

Luna waited till the ruffling of the professor's skirts faded away as she walked down the hall. Luna paused in her scribbling of a retarded looking cat until the slam of the door was heard and McGonagall was in her room. Then she returned to her writing.

_-McGonagall just returned with the list of dead people. Ginny, her father, and her oldest brother were among the dead. That leaves only four Weasleys left alive. Molly (), Percy (currently hiding in the forests of Albania), George (with his girlfriend, Angelina Johnson, and Percy), and Charlie, who is currently fighting Death Eaters in Italy. There has been too much death, I'm so sick of it. I saw Lavender Brown be tortured to death with the Cruciatus Curse. You should've seen her face, hers was twisted and full of pain. I remember how badly Lavender was foaming at the mouth, a pink froth of saliva and blood. Then she were killed, Lucius Malfoy cut her hands off and threw them into the crowd. The Death Eaters leapt for them like dogs, fighting over the trophies. It was __so__ disgusting. _

_No one was showed any mercy. All most all of my friends were killed; only me and Katie Bell actually made it back to 12 Grimmauld Place. The only reason I made it back is because I was hit with a Full Body Bind Hex, and most people just jumped over my body, not caring to check if I was alive or not. Katie de-hexed me and we both were present at the death of Harry Potter. He was hit with Avada Kedavra by Voldemort and fell. We hoped he would survive it, like as a baby he did, but he never got back up. It was like thinking you see a Nargle, but then it is just a branch as you get close, but seventy times worse. And then I saw Narcissa Malfoy, her eyes wide, she lept on the body and proclaimed, "He is dead!" That's when Katie, the professor, and I apparated back here. When we got home, Katie immediately fell on a chair and cried. McGonagall wondered around the house for days, not eating, not sleeping. I wasn't much better off._

Luna paused, rereading what she had written. Sighing, she balled up the parchment into a wrinkled sphere. She pushed back on the chair and stood up, walking through the halls to where she entered the archway to one of the many sitting rooms. The fire in the large obsidian fireplace crackled merrily, ignoring what was going on around it.

"Luna?"

Luna inhaled sharply and whipped around, pointing her wand to the speaker.

Fleur blinked, still slightly pop-eyed from the horrifying news of her husband's death, but did not flinch at Luna's sudden movement. She was lounging on the couch nearest to the fire, her hand permanently fixed on the baby bump. "Why aren't you ze little girl zhat goes around looking for zhose magical creatures?" Luna lowered her wand and stared at Fleur with confused sliver-gray eyes. "zI mean," Fleur hugged her baby tighter. "Why haven't you stayed ze pretty girl who always tells me fantastical zories about zings called Ruffled-zorned Snorcklacks and zhose Jumping Nizins?"

"I don't know." Luna tossed the confessions-filled paper into the fire and sat down at the feet of the widowed Weaseley. She watched the paper turn brown with heat, then black, the flames licking and devouring the parchment, until the paper was nothing more than ash.

"Your skin is so drawn, and your hair…" Fleur sat up, and reached for Luna's wild mane of bleached blond hair, gently pulling out tangles. "Ze can use some of my pearl wa'tr; it freshes up zur face and keeps your skeen smooth. It prevents acne too." Fleur smiled sadly. "Z'm so sorry. I wish that somezing good could hap'peen. We have lost zo many members. Ze war will no go on forever, ya?"

Luna grinned for the first time in what seemed like weeks and looked steadily in Fleur's soft heavily-lashed blue eyes. "It won't, will it?" She squeezed Fleur's hand tightly. "I'm sorry about the death of your husband and in-laws. Ginny and I were also really close."

"Ya, ya, I know." Fleur sighed broken-heartedly, turning her head away, her cheeks glistening with drying tears from the fire-light. "Bill wouldn't want me to morn over his death. He told me before he left that if he didn't come back that he didn't want me to cry, cuz it would be verry bad for ze baby." Fleur looked down at the baby bump and rubbed a hand over it. "Zit is ze last thing I have from my Bill, zo I will live for it, fighting until I'm pounded into ze ground."

Luna held in a sigh. She felt a flash of envy in her stomach for Fleur's focus and determination.

"Zwel, I better go get dinner before Molly eats all of the sandwiches. Zee bebe wants something to eat." Fleur stood up, one hand on the baby bump, the other wiping her nose, and left the room.

Luna paused, wanting Fleur to come back so they could chat more. She had forgotten how nice it was to converse with a living, breathing being, not just a pad of paper and pencil.

"**It is good to talk." – Bob Hoskins **


	2. Chapter 2

Mrs. Weasley was in the kitchen. Her masses of bright red hair was tight back with a rubber band in a bun. She was waltzing around, singing along to the music bursting out of the radio on the counter. She plunged her hands into the steamy, foaming dish water, reaching a high soprano note as she quickly pulled her hands out and added some cold water. Luna cocked her head thoughtfully, her diary hugged tightly with both hands. She had on her favorite pajamas, the spaghetti strap top and long flannel bottoms where identical; bright yellow with violet, smiling worms all over the shirt.

Mrs. Weasley turned and smiled absent mindedly at Luna, not seeming to notice the strangness of what she was wearing. "Dear, it's nearly midnight. Shouldn't you be in bed?" She chirped and her voice was high and light: extremely artificial.

Luna blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. "I was thinking…have you ever heard of Romeo and Juliet?" Her eyes darted quickly to the cobblestone floor. "It's a play by a Muggle a long time ago, and my mother used to quote from it. There's this part that she loved, but I can't remember it. It was like something about two houses and star-crossed lovers…"

Mrs. Weasley threw her head back and laugh happily. "That was my favorite lesson in Muggle Studies when I was at Hogwarts. You are thinking of the famous opening lines of the play:

_Two households, both alike in dignity,_

_In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,_

_  
__ From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,_

_  
__ Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean._

_  
__ From forth the fatal loins of these two foes_

_  
__ A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;_

_  
__ Whose misadventured piteous overthrows _

_  
__ Do with their death bury their parents' strife._

_  
__ The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,_

_  
__ And the continuance of their parents' rage,_

_  
__ Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,_

_  
__ Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;_

_  
__ The which if you with patient ears attend,_

_  
__ What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend._

Luna listened to Mrs. Weasley's musical lilting voice, understanding little of the magical language. "What does it mean?" Luna breathed quietly, still taking in the language.

"What we learned from the professor is that the play is about a young Muggle girl named Juliet and a rebellious lad named Romeo, who fall in love and try to overcome the hatred of their two families have against one and other. But Juliet is planned to be married to a approved suitor, so their love is secret, or something similar to that." Mrs. Weasley narrowed her eyebrows slightly, trying to focus on a tough grease spot on a china plate.

"What happens then? Do the families make up? Does Juliet marry Romeo and have children?" Luna couldn't help but to get a little breathless with excitement.

"No." Molly's voice was hard and flat, absorbing all of the excitement from Luna. "Romeo thinks that Juliet has died, whereas Juliet is just sleeping. He commits suicide by drinking a vial of plant poison. Then Juliet wakes up and sees her beloved Romeo gasping his last breath and kills herself with his dagger. And they die side by side. The two families forgive and forget after their deaths."

_A glooming peace this morning with it brings;_

_The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head_

_  
__Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;_

_  
__Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:_

_  
__For never was a story of more woe _

_  
__Than this of Juliet and her Romeo._

"That's awful!" Luna couldn't help reply sharply. "Every love should have a happy ending, fictional or not."

"Luna," paused in her cleaning and looked at Luna sharply, her pulled lips in a thin line. "There were many complications to the love of these two people. Their families hated the other's family, Juliet was to be married to another, and Romeo killed a beloved cousin of Juliet's. Even if they were to be married, they would both be outcasts in the upper classes and they might have questioned each other's loyalty to the other, think that each would be plotting to kill the other or that they might have another lover. The best thing they did for the play was to die. Despite of what you think, Luna dear, you are very inexperienced at relationships and are naïve; not all relationships are healthy."

Luna blinked slowly, taking in the Weasley's explanation. "Well, I think I'm going to bed now. Good night, don't let the Nargles crawl up your underwear and bite." She turned and walked stiffly out of the room with a swish of her hair, leaving the silent mother with her arms elbow deep in dish water.

()o0o()o0o()o0o()

Luna entered her 'room' and flopped down on the makeshift mattress. She couldn't even consider it to be a room. It was a corner of one of the many of the Black House's bedrooms, separated from the rest of the other three 'rooms' with quilts. It was roughly about five meters long and four meters wide, two mattresses squished together, one for her the other for her father. It was an empty and homeless place, setting a bleak mood. She had tried to warm it up, putting up an assortment of different random objects. She had tried everything; torn out pictures from her old text books, pictures of creatures she had drawn of Nargles and Jumping Gartains, an old tattered poster of The Weird Sisters and Viktor Krum Ron was about to throw out in his fourth year which Luna had rescued from the trash, and a wrapper of a Muggle candy bar called "Mars". But everything had just seemed to make it more colorful and fake, not homey and genuine.

She pulled back the blue and white striped blanket and slipped herself under, pulling back up to her chin. She grabbed her wand and a two month old issue of the Quibbler, a special issue with an extended Runes page, a special report on tracking the Crumple-Horned Snorkack by Rolf Scamander, a twenty year old naturalist with a funny mustache that curled up at the ends and a twitching eye problem, and a long article on hairdos, what Dad had said would lure in more female readers.

"Lumos," she muttered, and slid under the blanket, the blue light illuminating the space between the covers. She ignored the runes and the report. Immediately she folded back the page that held various hairdos for every texture, length, and color ever imaginable. She turned to the section covering light blonde hair, marveling at the close up of the a pretty model, who was showing off a lopsided bun, turning in circles to show the whole thing, all the while blowing kisses and winking at the camera in a flirty sassy style. Then she turned over the page to her picture. They were out of models and her dad had volunteered her up for the shoot. She was smiling a full toothy grin, blinking only a few times, sporting a half ponytail. The makeup artist had done a good job at covering up blemishes.

"Luna?" Her dad's voice was a comforting sound.

"Dad!" Luna threw off the covers and stood up in a feverish frenzy, throwing herself into the old man's arms. "You're home and in one piece!"

Xenophilius hugged his daughter tightly, running his fingers through her hair. His hair was close to standing up on end and his face was streaked with a mixture of dust, mud, and blood. He kissed Luna on her forehead and held her even tighter. "The battle's not over,"

Luna pulled her father away and looked at him, confused. "But you are home! We are safe at the Black's house!"

Dad looked at his daughter sadly, shaking his head. "They followed us home, Luna-kins. Minerva and Molly are reinforcing the protection spells, but it's in a matter of minutes when they will finally brake through the shield. We are making sure that Fleur and a few others get to safety at the Weasley's Burrow before letting the extra reinforcement go away. That's why I came to get you. Gather up as little as you can and hurry."

"What? The Death Eaters are going to attack the Grimmauld Place? You want me to flee?" Luna considered her options for a moment before shaking her head. "I staying and fighting."

Xenophilius' soft voice became urgent. "Luna, if they attack you, they will kill you."

"I'm staying, Father." Luna's voice became icy. "You can't do anything about it. I'm going out with a bang."

She watched as her father's face crinkled. "Please, try to keep yourself safe, and don't use your wand unless it's absolutely necessary. There is no need for extra dueling. Try to keep yourself concealed until the last minute possible." Xenophilius hurried off to help the others.

Luna swallowed, a new terror twisting in her stomach. What had she just gotten herself into?


End file.
